Now that, I call strange!

Some time in December, both my main hard-drive and my backup hard-drive failed. I have had to reconstruct work from the last ten years from Web-Sites and from crumbs that I've found lying around on various external drives.

Amongst other things, of course, this blog.
I found some backup data containing published blog-entries on one drive and look — I was able to reconstruct (I think) my complete blog — but could I publish it — I could not!
I can't say how many dozens of times, I've tried to re-publish these pages without success.
Please don't ask me what I did differently today — I have no idea.

The main thing is — I am back online.

More to follow!

They actually finished renovating the north side of the house a few weeks ago!
Watching them at work, it really is no wonder that it took them so long ...
... they nailed up the shingles one at a time!



Really, the guy doing the work nailed a piece of metal to the wall, aligned a shingle to the metal and shot two staples into it. Took the next shingle, aligned it to the metal and shot two staples into it. Took the next shingle ...
Amazing!
After doing this sort of work for over two hundred years, now, you'd think they'd have discovered a swifter way to work. Well, not here.

They say that the Swiss are slow (the Swiss say it's only the people from Basel that are slow, but I beg to differ!). Watching them work makes me fall asleep!
If anybody from the Swiss-Wall-Cladding-Industry wants a tip on how to speed things up - just give me a call ...



At least the shingles are wood, though, before work was started, I was afraid they were going to use the cheaper, asbestos version that some newer houses are clad in.

I told you about our Apprentices practical examination?
Well, she went on to do a couple of days of theoretical exams and all the hard work she put in over the last five years payed off — she passed.
I was proud to accompany her to her Diploma Celebration and more than willing to arrange the traditional initiation ceremony for her.
Since very early years, Printers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been initiated after becoming a journeyman. The initiation may be carried through in other countries too – in German the ceremony is called 'Gautschen'. Over the years, the ceremony has been extended to take in not just printers but most pre-press apprentices too. We had our Gautschfest last Friday.

There were two young ladies to be initiated, this time round. One because she just passed her exams, the other because she passed her exams twelve months ago, but was not initiated by the company she did her apprenticeship at. Now we can't have that, can we?

So what happens at a Gautschfest?
At a prearranged time both ladies were supposed to be bound, hands and feet and carried or frog-marched downstairs, where two barrows were waiting to cart them off to the village fountain.
Two of our men were clever enough to creep up on their (almost) unsuspecting victim and close her office door to prevent her escape, before successfully overpowering her.
The other two weren't so lucky they were spotted and the young lady defended herself with a water pistol, of all things, before taking off .
I chased her down two flights of stairs before loosing my footing – luckily without serious injury.
The other guys caught up with her on the car-park. She put up a fight and I was forced to stop photographing and take hold of her so that the ceremony could commence!

Both ladies were bundled into carts and transported to the village fountain a kilometer away. There the ceremony master was waiting for them. His speech called for them to be sat upon wet sponges until their nether regions were well and truly wet. He then called for their christening – with buckets of water.
After the christening the ladies were freed from their bonds (well, they were supposed to be) and dropped into the fountain. As the fountain had specially been cleaned and refilled just the day before, the water was freezing – I can assure you.

The delinquents then had to pull their carts back to work, where a barbeque had been prepared in their absence.

They were lucky they only got wet.
Until two-hundred years ago the fresh journeyman was set under the influence for a week. During this period, a tooth was extracted, his hair was shorn (as badly as possible) and his colleagues all got as drunk as possible too. The initiation was banned after getting out of hand.
Not to be done out of a celebration, this modern form of initiation soon reappeared soon after the ban.
I quite enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoy the pictures ...

I'm just watching something called America's got Talent, on the box ...
An elderly gentleman just left the stage after doing an impersonation of Frank Sinatra.
I was surprised that neither the jury nor the audience seemed to notice that he didn't hit his notes a number of times.



The thing that shocked me, though, was the fact that he gave his audience the two-fingers* on four separate occasions, while leaving the stage.

Try that in England and you wouldn't be very welcome on stage again – he, however, gets a chance to travel to Las Vegas!

*For those of you, who have no idea at all, what I am talking about:
Pictures of Sir Winston Churchill often show him giving the 'V' sign - V for victory.
Displaying the 'V' sign the other way round (in my day also known as 'the two fingers') is just about the strongest insult you can make in GB.
Worse, I would say, than the raised middle finger, I learned in Germany.

I just cut some buns open and popped them under the grill ...
The Hamburgers should be done any minute now.
Who told cows they should stand under trees during a thunderstorm anyway?

We've had a number of thunderstorms, these last few weeks.
During one of them, my friends daughter's dad rang. After they had conversed fo a few minutes, the box on the wall went 'Zzzztt!!' and the phone went dead. I couldn't believe the phone was dead — the internet connection was still working.
However, no amount of button pushing would revive the phone and in the end I called Swisscom on my mobile to ask for assistance.

The woman on the other end was very sympathetic.
"W'rum hänse telefonieret, wenn's gwittret?!" She demanded to know.
Why were you using the phone during a thunderstorm?!
Apparently, when the phone rang, I was expected to jump up and yell
"Stand back! Don't touch it!"

She was so kind.
She offered to send a technician within the next three days.
Well, that's nice of you, I'll just take the next few days off work, then, so I'm sure to be here when the guy arrives ...
Any chance of something a little more precise?
Friday morning between 07:00 and 10:00 was her answer.
For the two days in between, she would have all my calls diverted to my mobile.

I do, so like Switzerland's Customer Services.

Oh, there you are — a flash of lightning — I'll have to take a look and see, if my cows are done yet ...

A friend recently came over for dinner.
During dinner she repeatedly stopped chewing and cocked her head to one side,
After a while, she informed me:
"I could never live here!"

I suppose it's a good thing I hadn't invited her to come and live here!

Yesterday, the rain would have made things easier for her.
The cows were huddled tightly together under the trees and somehow managed not to move at all.
The sound of cow bells was gone!

I'm sometimes amazed at the things that disturb people.
Friends who spent the night here once, got up in the middle of the night to put planks of wood under the flow of the spring outside because the sound of the water was preventing them from sleeping.
Strangely the water will very occasionally stop flowing for a few minutes —
that's when I wake up!

The ultimate torture for some, obviously, would be the nights when a couple of cows come and lie down next to the spring to chew the cud. And then, at five in the morning, the cockerel down the road begins to crow.
I think it's idyllic.
Some, for some reason, don't ...

I have lived close to St.Gallen, now, for nearly ten years.
Before that, I worked in St.Gallen for six years.
In those 15 years I have noticed that they have a strange custom ...
... the St.Galler Open Air Festival is always held at the worst possible time of the year.

Do you remember Woodstock?
Remember the weather on the third day of the event — the Sunday?
Right — it teemed down with rain and gusts of wind threatened to topple the lighting masts.
Well, that is what the weather at the St.Galler Open Air Festival is usually like!

I worked in a building situated at one of the festival entrances for ten years and I stood at the window many a year to watch hunched up figures, carrying rucksacks and tents, shuffle through the mud towards a weekend of music, alcohol, marihuana and muck.

Yesterday was only slightly different.
After two weeks of constant rain, the tight valley which hosts the event was waterlogged.
At midday, yesterday, the weather suddenly brightened and hordes of people clothed in t-shirts and rucksacks emerged from St.Gallen main station happily puffing away at joints and lifting their smiling faces to the skies.
They made their way by bus to the soggy meadows of Sittertal, to pitch their tents and, as the first performances were already on Thursday evening, I don't really want to try to imagine the results, but I'm sure that by the time Cypress Hill appeared on stage at around 23:00, people were, in places, already ankle deep in the mire.
Just to put the icing on the cake, while The Niceguys and The Flaming Lips and The Cold War Kids were on stage (there are four different stages to get wet at), entertainment began in earnest; it rained in buckets full for two hours!

Luckily, by 05:00 this morning it stopped raining for about four hours, so anyone already awake might have breakfasted in relative dryness, from the knees up, at least.
There is more rain to come during today and the forecast is for rain until next Friday.
I bet they'll have fun clearing the mess up afterwards!



The images above are from previous years, courtesy of Stadt St.Gallen (St.Gallen can do it.) and Flickr.
The image below is from today, courtesy of the organisers . The make-shift sign says
"Warning – Damp areas & Danger of splashing"

If you are wondering what you are missing, here is the programme.
Although there is some great music being presented, I can assure you, I shan't be there. Again.

O.K. to be honest I was very annoyed with Google for blocking my site - it has been blocked for over six weeks now.
I felt discriminated.

This site was hacked on the afternoon of March 27th and within hours, Google hung up a sign to inform my readers that I was distributing malware. In actual fact each of my .html pages had been injected with a Java script which could attack Windows machines.
I took a careful look at my site (because Google told me I should) and discovered hundreds of pages which had been hacked and needed replacing. I did so within three hours of the attack.
Sadly I missed a couple of galleries, I'm afraid.

The problem is, it is impossible to communicate with Google. You send a request for them to rescan a site and get a message that it can take up to several weeks to do so ...
... but you never get an answer or a message to tell you that your site is or (in my case) still isn't o.k.
Then I found a scan result which stated that my site had been scanned last Wednesday and ...
... was distributing malware.

I opened up each and every single page that is openly online and checked.
Nothing.
Then I remembered some galleries that are linked to this blog - dormant and unused.
I checked them. They were a writhing mass of bugs!
I spent Thursday evening online checking each and every hidden directory and repaired over a hundred files.

If you feel that your computer has been compromised as a result of visiting my site, I would like offer my humble apologies.
I reacted as soon as I was notified but missed the galleries containing the pictures of the car cemetery, the cows under the trees and a few pages that are, as to date, still unlinked.
If you visited either the cars or the cows between 27th March and 14th May, then please check your (Windows – Macs remain unaffected) computer for malware.

I now have certification that my site is clean again!

For four years now, my apprentice has been training to be a Typograph/Media-Producer.
This week she had to take her practical examination.

It is interesting that in Germany they sent the exams along to the instructor with the request to make sure they were carried out correctly. In Switzerland, an 'expert' comes along to supervise.

The lady responsible for supervising our examinations first explained the exercises that were to be carried out and, when she was sure the instructions were clear, she pressed the button on her stop-watch.
She was a little put out that she couldn't sit next to the examinee, but the poor girl was nervous enough, without having a stranger breathing down her neck for two-and-a-half days.

Instead I seated our expert in the office opposite where she could see who went in and out, but couldn't actually see the apprentice without taking a few steps first. I certainly wasn't making life easy for her.
I gave her a coffee and watched her twiddle her thumbs and flip through her diary for a few minutes before I settled down to watch my protégé's screen from the comfort of my own computer, sending her the odd tip via chat now and again ...
You don't want someone to ruin four years hard work, just because they are nervous.

The Pre-Press exam is fairly straight-forward — unless, of course, you are a bundle of nerves:
• Colour-correction and exact cropping of three digital images; a picture composition put together from two images and a cut-out with some retouching work – 2 hours.
• Reproduction of a two-sided order-card to exact design 'drawings' – 4 hours.
• Design and production of a sixteen-page brochure, from initial scribbles (to be submitted) to finished print-data and presentation mock-up – 12 hours.
• Correct colour-profiles embedded in all files and everything saved to a CD after a specific file-structure.
After 19 hours points are deducted every 15 minutes taken, after 20 hours the exercise is broken off. Failure.

Every now and then, a colleague would distract the expert while a few tips were given or corrections suggested and during the midday break everything was checked and double checked. Another colleague made sure that the meal was drawn out a little ...

I heard of one young lady, who returned to her desk on Thursday evening after 'her' expert had left and spent half the night correcting and completing her work. We didn't have to resort to such drastic measures, we just spent a lot of time coaching and becalming ...

The mock-up presented a few problems because it had to be larger than A3 [420 mm x 297 mm]. The examination committee presumes that everybody has an A2 printer that wil print, bind and trim all in one go. Our A3 printer doesn't and is too small anyway!
I asked the expert to turn a blind-eye, while I helped produce the mock-up.
She did.

I got the thumbs up yesterday when I asked for the experts opinion on the results (I knew so anyway, but I wanted my protégé to see it).

Now we have to endure two days of theoretical exams. We can't help there, I'm afraid, those have to be taken at school ...

... not with the sound of music but, after a long and enjoyable winter, they are very slowly growing colourful.





Down in the valley, spring is about a fortnight further advanced than up here, but the wait is still worth it ...

An ex-pat blog about life in Switzerland that I read regularly, posed the question this week 'What is Quark?'.
I was surprised to see that no-one had bothered to answer the question, so I thought perhaps a belated Aprilscherz (April Fools Joke) had been suspected.
Not the case — I wrote a reply explaining exactly what Quark is but my reply was rejected. The reason? "Bad Spam Word"!

I have no idea which word is supposed to be a spam word — perhaps it was 'Tuffet'?

Before moving to Switzerland, I lived in the south of Germany for almost thirty years. There, Quark is regularly served (most especially on a Friday) with potatoes and Schnittlauch — chives.

So what is Quark exactly?
This was, of course, my first question as a plate full of the stuff was placed before me.
The answer was provided by the Schöffler-Weis German and English dictionary — these were pre-www-days!
Curds!

O.K. so what are curds? Well I knew that Miss Muffet ate them together with whey, but although they were apparently everyday ingredients for a staple diet in Britain 200 years ago, no-one had deemed them fit to be served, in our family at least, during the 20th century.

Curds, I eventually found out, sadly without the assistance of Wikipedia 'in those days', are a form of fresh cheese. Lactic acid is added to milk which separates into curds and whey. If you leave it to stand, long enough, the curds will harden and turn into cheese.
The Germans, Austrians, Swiss and the Alsatians stir the whey back into the Quark to prevent it from hardening — presumably, this too is what Miss Muffet was enjoying before her meal was so rudely disturbed.

The fat content is, amazingly, 0.2% so, to make it unhealthier, cream is usually added.
I have to admit, spiced with a little salt and chopped cloves, served with boiled potatoes, it really is delicious.

Some but not all of the whey is stirred into the Quark, so what happens to the rest?
As you can read on the blog mentioned above, it is all shipped off to a factory in Rothrist, Switzerland, where it is turned into fizzy pop!
Fizzy pop, produced from sour milk?!
Sounds terrible — tastes great!
Really.

Now, what's a tuffet ...

When talking to friends and relatives on the phone, the most common question is 'What's the weather doing?'.
The question, although so very British, is not confined to the people I talk to in Britain — my German friends ask it just as often.

At the moment the question has been refined to 'Have you still got snow?'
The answer is 'No — it's gone.'

To prove it, here are two pictures, taken just ten minutes ago:





You see — no snow, it's gone, almost.

By comparison, here is a picture taken a fortnight ago:



See the difference?
Correct — we have bare patches now, we didn't last week ...

Since Christmas I've been unable to access our server at work from home.
We got a new firewall at work for Christmas and, even though my firewall is the same brand, they seemed to be unable to communicate with each other.

I mentioned it to one of our techies and he got me to check this and that, experiment here and there and crash my machine a number of times. At long last, after checking both firewalls, he decided it was time to update the software on mine.
"Not a big deal," he said "only takes a couple of minutes."

So, yesterday morning he logged on to my machine – online – downloaded the new software, installed it – and was gone.
No, he wasn't finished, he was just gone.
His supposed update had flushed my firewall's ROM and disconnected me from the Internet.
No Firewall, no techie, nothing. A blank screen, so to speak.
Well, there was nothing else for it but to bundle up my firewall under my arm and take it to Techie.
Luckily I pass his office on my way to work, so it was only a short detour.

Round about 16:00 he phoned to say I could collect my firewall again, newly configured a ready to take me online.
"I've just made a few alterations which mean you'll have to reconfigure your modem."

Of course, there's nothing easier than reconfiguring a modem – I do it almost every day – great, thanks!

So I connected my computer directly to the modem, sorted out its IP-address and password, quickly reconfigured it and re-set-up my account with Swisscom, who, of course, didn't recognise me any more.
It didn't take more than an hour.
But then, I'd got nothing better to do with my Friday evening anyway, had I?
When I was finished, I plugged in the firewall, connected it between the computer and the modem and went online.
Well, at least, I tried to. Nothing; a blank screen.
I sorted out the passwords etc. and logged in to the firewall. There I was greeted by large red letters stating "The firewall has not been configured"!
Not having done it before, it took me about two hours to figure out how a firewall is configured but, in the end, I actually got back online.
As you can see.


This morning Techie phoned and asked cheerfully "Everything all right?"
He can consider himself lucky that he lives in Austria ...

Have I talked about the Winter yet this year, about the snow?
I don't think I have, have I?



It was a little warmer, yesterday, than usual so the snow lost a little of its volume.
This picture was taken this morning.
When the thermometer in the car displayed this:



Take my word for it — that is slightly chilly!

Obviously you'll now be asking what the roads look like.
Well, I assure you, there is no need for concern — today they have been cleared
and look more or less like this for most of the way down to St.Gallen:



Two inches of packed snow.
In St.Gallen it is much warmer [-13°] and there is more traffic so a lot of the snow had disappeared from the roads by 07:00. Instead it was piled up on the pavements, where pedestrians had to fight to pass each other.



I do like the winter – don't you?

I recently published a list of all the Macintosh computers I have owned. This got me thinking about my other hobby – photography.
It would seem that I don't get through cameras as fast as I do computers (or cars, my brother would tell you — not true!):

I started photographing things while I was at Art-School. I can't, for the life of me, remember the camera I used in those days, but I still have some of the pictures. Black and white.
For some reason photography didn't interest me a great deal in those days. It might be due to the fact that I found the costs prohibitive.

Around 1970 some kind person gave me a used Olympus Pen 35 mm Half-Frame Camera which I promptly took on holiday with me to Germany – that person may step forward because, I'm ashamed to say, I have no idea which relative it was.

From then I have progressed:

ca. 1978: Yashica TL Electro-X
1980: Olympus OM 1 (second hand but still in immaculate condition today)
1983: Olympus OM 2
1987: Olympus OM 2 SP
1992: Olympus iS 3000 (L3)
1997: Olympus CAMEDIA C-1400L 1.4 Megapixel
1999: Sony DSC F505 2.1 Megapixel
2001: Sony DSC F707 5.2 Megapixel
2003: Sony DSC F828 8.3 Megapixel
2006: Sony DSC R1 10.3 Megapixel
2008: Olympus E-3 10.1 Megapixel
2008: Nikon D700 12.5 Megapixel

Strangely I have no idea what happened to either the Olympus Pen or the Yashica.
I still have the OM 1 and the iS 3000 and only very recently gave the OM 2 SP to a friend, who'd broken the OM 2 I'd given her ten, twelve years ago. (The OM 1 and iS3000 are up for sale to the highest bidder!)

I've always been a fan of Olympus cameras and was terribly disappointed with the first DSLR they put on the market. It seemed so inferior compared with the Sony 'point-and-shoots'.
At the end of 2007 Olympus at long last introduced the camera that I'd been waiting for, for all those years. After reading the technical blurb, I ordered one and, when it arrived, was immediately disappointed with it!
Oh, dont get me wrong – it is a state-of-the-art device, but I had never read up on the pros and cons of the chip-size that Olympus uses.
The Sony chips are so much larger (at the same resolution) and deliver a picture (sorry Olympus) of much higher quality.

Having an SLR back in my hands, though, had me hooked again and when Nikon introduced an SLR with a full-sized (35 mm) chip...

As soon as I've got it calibrated to shoot panoramas, you can expect some high-quality alpine pictures (technically that is, not necessarily content-wise)!

Watch this space ...

I won't be able to go to work tomorrow, it snowed last night.
There are twenty centimeters of snow on the ground again. And it's still snowing!
Public transport won't be running and the schools will be closed.
The saddest fact is, the guy with the snow plough has by-passed us today and not cleared our road, so I'm snowed in!

Oh, wait a minute, I've been reading those horror stories on the BBC web-site – you know, those about Britain.
The snow plough hasn't been along today, because there are only the 20 cm at the moment and it's just not worth clearing the minor roads. Of course the main roads will have been cleared and public services will be running normally!

The thing I don't understand is the fact that the British train services can get stopped by 12 cm of snow, while services in southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland just keep on running with just slight delays where there have been occurrences of ice on the tracks.
Can someone explain please?

Wiltshire county council used 7500 tonnes of salt in three days, so I understand, leaving them with just 1000 tonnes for the rest of the winter.
Are they really doing things correctly? Mr. Highways Agency CEO – you are supposed to clear the roads with a snow-plough and then disperse the salt; you need a little less salt that way!
Last time I talked about snow on this blog, someone commented on the fact that they always have the wrong sort of snow in Britain. I've not talked to Ms. Smilla about this yet, but I have the feeling that the Brits are using the wrong method, the wrong snow-ploughs, the wrong salt or a combination of the three.

We are in for more snow over the next week, so if the people responsible for maintaing the flow of life in Britain would care to come and take lessons, I'm sure you'd be welcome ...

Last week the Apple Macintosh was twenty-five years old.
The fact prompted me to go through, in my mind, all the Macs I've owned.

I've worked with Apple Macintosh computers daily since 1990, after watching my colleagues working with them for five years.
The first machine I was forced to work with was a IIFX. You could have bought a Mercedes Benz for the same price.
I rather liked the Mercedes – I hated the Mac. It was what the Germans term as a Shrinking Violet (Mimose) – very sensitive.
On some days I got the distinct feeling that I only had to look at the thing and it would crash!

Here are the machines, I've been proud to own:

1991 Quadra 700
1993 Quadra 660 AV
1995 PowerBook 5300
1996 PowerBook 1400 cs
1997 PowerMac 8600
1998 PowerMac G3
1999 PowerBook G3 (Lombard)
2001 PowerBook G3 (Titanium)
2002 PowerMac G4
2004 PowerMac G5 (I'm writing on it at this moment)
2005 PowerBook G4 17"
2008 MacBook Pro 15"

Just for the record: 1999 Newton 120 – the neatest piece of computer hardware I ever owned!

Not bad, I suppose, twelve computers in seventeen years.
Theoretically that means each one lasted one-and-a-half years.
I sold most of them on and many are still alive today – I visit them sometimes.
I've lost track of how many Macs I got through at the various places I've worked, but at the place I work now, I've had five.

You'll have noticed that half of the machines I owned were laptops, which I always had parallel to my desktops. I spent a great deal of my time on the road. The first two, the 5300 and the 1400, were painfully slow but since then the Mac books have always been able to keep pace with a desk-top – once they were booted.

I only recently sold my 17" G4 and replaced it with an Intel model.
Not that I wasn't satisfied with the G4, but occasionally I need to test something on a Windows machine. For this purpose I purchased a Sony Vaio 12" which is a wonderful little machine. My new MacBook, however runs Windows a lot faster and having two systems on one machine means less clutter on my desktop.

I've mentioned before that I have a number of (working) Macs on shelves in my office. Some of them, such as my Quadra 660, I've used myself, some I've collected to save them from being binned. I'm still looking for a Color Classic, which was produced in 1993, so if anyone knows where there might be one lying around ...

Happy Birthday, Mac!

On December the 25th we celebrate Christmas.
This is because on the eve of December 25th Father Christmas clambers down our chimneys right?
Wrong!
Go and read your Bible again and come back when you know what we are really celebrating!

Father Christmas,or Santa Claus, as he is also known, was a Greek bishop from Patra* in the 4th century who gave his whole inheritance to the poor and, reputedly, had a soft spot for children.
He dedicated his life to serving God and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout for his generosity to the those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.
After his death on December the 6th in Myra he somehow turned into a saint – Saint Nicholas.
Something to do with some manna that grew on his grave.
The anniversary of his death became a day of celebration, St. Nicholas Day.

The cult of the saint spread from Italy to the rest of Europe during the 11th century.

I spent some years in Germany and originally thought the Germans must be impatient because Father Christmas arrived there on the 6th of December and not, as we Brits and those Americans expect him to, on the 25th.
It took a visit to Turkey to make some sense of the mix up that somehow occurred while the cult was crossing the English Channel.

While in Germany I often heard of, but never saw Knecht Ruprecht, Saint Nicholas' attendant. The children were threatened that, if they hadn't been good during the year, they would get a beating from Ruprecht, rather than presents from Santa.
Imagine my surprise, then, the first time I bumped into Santa here in Switzerland. He was accompanied by a bearded guy in a cassock who, for all the world looked just like Santa himself – except, that is, that both his cassock and his face were black.
This, I supposed, was the guy who is forced to climb down the chimneys in Santas' place.
His name is Schmutzli which just happens to sound like the German word for 'dirty'

Schmutzli carries Santas' sack for him and a switch and, just as in Germany, the children get the choice of a present or a beating.
Thankfully, Santa creeps down English chimneys during the night and doesn't bring an attendant along. I don't think I'd have been able to bear the strain of not knowing whether to expect, a gift or a clobbering!

The whole of eastern Europe has similar traditions to Germany and Switzerland and I find it strange, that in crossing The Channel, Santa got muddled and thought he was Jesus after all.

You might like to read about the various attendants he has …

Oh, by the way – Happy Nicholaus-Tag

*Don't ask me how they did it, but both Patra and Myra are now in Turkey

Autumn and winter are my favourite times of the year. Autumn, of course, mainly because of the colours but also because of the fog and mist and the marvelous skies and…

This year, it seems to me, the colours have been even more intense than usual and it has annoyed me that I haven't had an opportunity to take any photographs.
A fortnight ago I snapped off a couple of shots from my office window (which I do quite regularly) and was happy to have captured some of the Autumn colours 'on film' at last.



Last week, though, looking out of the same window, I was presented with a palette even more abundant in colour, I dropped everything and grabbed a camera.
The difference a week can make!



I do like Autumn…

How silly of me…
… I just logged on to see if there were any new entries on this blog.
Of course, no one else works here…

You'll have to excuse – I've still got my right leg in 'plaster' and don't spend so many hours at the computer as I used to.
I don't get round to doing as much photography as I might, either.

However – a fortnight ago, I travelled with friends from the Fotoclub St.Gallen to Kaufdorf in Gürbethal (near Bern) because there is an Automobile Cemetery there.
Quite photogenic.



Sadly the cemetery will have to close in March next year, so any one wanting to see this spectacular display of automobile history will have to hurry!

In 1975 the authorities in Bern gave the owner of the scrap yard permission to create the auto cemetery, but insisted he would have to hide it by planting a few hundred trees.
The trees were planted and both cars and trees have coexisted ever since. Nature, however, is slowly gaining the upper hand.
In places it is hard to decide if a car is part of a tree or if a tree is part of a car.

Now the authorities have decided that the cemetery has to disappear – the trees do not blend into the landscape and the cars (not one of them a day under 30 years old) are polluting the environment!
Quite paradox.

I shan't go into all of the arguments that have ignited around the topic. Let it suffice to say that they are heated, with the authorities refusing to see that the scrap yard might be of any cultural value…

…look at the pictures and judge for yourself.

Checking my web-site-statistics yesterday, I happened upon the page that shows me which searches brought people to my blog...

... Jul gets people who are looking for a 'Whore in Regensburg‘, 'Naked man pictures' or 'Japanese peeing'. I read her blog regularly and would never have worked out what makes it so popular with Google.

So what have I been writing about?

Most people arriving at my site via search engines are [still] looking to purchase a Burkini!
I googled the word myself and was relieved to see that I am not the world's leading authority on the subject - happily, I don't even make page 5.

I am, however, the world's leading expert regarding the topic What is going to happen in the Alps - right after Wikipedia, that is. Thank you Google, I love you!
My expertise on Cow Bells in the Alps is often consulted, but not as often as Dr. Herriot; and if you ever need to know How to stop pigs blood congealing, well, just ask!

You can't avoid my blog, if you wish to know anything pertaining to Schwiizertüütsch and I get regular clicks from ¿Norway? on that one. I wonder what that means in Norwegian?

My all time favorite?
Wanted, second hand motorway sound barrier.
Well, I suppose it depends on how much you want, I've got a couple of hundred meters in the garage, from that time when I practiced hydroplaning on my way home from work...
... it's going to cost you, though!

There was a moody sky when I arrived home this evening.
Strangely it didn’t rain and everything is back to normal now.



Come to think of it, I’m a bit moody myself. Apple has gone and fixed something that wasn’t broken. They took their Dot Mac services and converted them to MobileMe.
It starts with the name - it sounds really inspiring, as if it jumped right out of Windows.

All sorts of claims were made about the service, such as 'Exchange for the rest of us' and 'Push technology'. There are no references to either now.
With Dot Mac I had syncing for my Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, and no end of other info between all of my Macs. With MobileMe I still have that, plus my data is 'pushed' (what am I supposed to call it now I'm not allowed to call it 'push'?) out over the air to my iPhone.
Wow! If I make a change on my Mac (or PC), the change automatically syncs to the MobileMe server, where I can view it on the MobileMe website or 15 minutes later on my iPhone - uuhm, if I had one...
If I alter something on the web or on my non-existant iPhone, within 15 minutes the change happens on my Macs. This is the sort of technological improvement, I greet with open arms, I just hope the service gets extended to similar mobile phones, because at the moment there's no way I'm going to purchase a Phone that can't do half of what my current phone can do!

My Calendar is online and I can access it from anywhere in the world without having to publish it - but do I get a choice of which sets of entries I get to synchronise?
It's all or nothing, I'm afraid. So now my personal dates are online, my work dates, my boss's dates, German holidays, Swiss holidays, British holidays, Birthdays...

You are supposed to take the good with the bad, they say...
Gone are my online bookmarks - I'm no longer able to access them from any computer, anywhere in the world.
Gone are iCards and - for some reason - gone is my mail!!
No mail at all has reached my Mailbox for the last two days!!

I'm sure Apple is working on it, but to be without mail during a working week is rather a problem.
To charge for the service (and it's not cheep) is rather a cheek!
Steve - if you're reading this - please switch my mail-account back on...

Lynx recently talked about the smoking bans that are slowly creeping accross Sitzerland.
Some enjoy cigarettes, I enjoy a cigarillo or two while sitting with a beer and chatting with friends in a bar...
In my opinion smoking should be prohibited anywhere that people gather to eat or where people are forced to spend time in confined spaces e.g. public transport, theatres etc. (as is already the case in most European countries!).

Trying to break a 500-year-old-habit (and the rising prices of alcoholic beverages in public houses) is leading to economical and sociological problems in both Germany and Britain.
Germany reports less business volume since smoking bans were introduced in 2007, with bars, discotheques and restaurants doing less trade.
In Britain 17 pubs are reported to be closing every week - that is over 850 closures a year. Figures released by the British Beer and Pub Association reveal that the current pub closure rate is seven times faster than in 2006 and 14 times faster than in 2005.


Granted, it will be another 65 years before the last pub will be forced to close at the present rate, but a unique heritage that attracts visitors from all over the world, seems to be slowly coming to an end.
The unique thing about British pubs is the fact that, traditionally, everyone visits them. In the coutryside it is not unusual to find the local squire standing next to and socialising with Joe Bloggs.

Britain's problem with public houses disappearing is due to the fact that, over the years, thousands of pubs were bought by investors. Enterprise Inns, for instance owned over 9,000 Public Houses in Britain until recently.
Due to a combination of cheap alcoholic beverages being sold in supermarkets and a smoking ban for all enclosed public spaces, all of a sudden profits have dropped and the investors are making a loss. To cut their losses, they are ‘disposing of pubs with profits less than the group [Enterprise] average’.
It is more profitable sell the buildings and have them converted into office space.

The Swiss Restaurants and bars, that I know, are similar to British pubs - the mayor will drink there along with everyone else and discuss local gossip - they are a central meeting place for the local comunity. A ban on smoking is going to unbalance this social environment.
Before we reach the point that Swiss bars start to close down at a rate similar to that of British public houses, I would hope that Switzerland will take a look at what is happening to its neighbours. There may be a solution other than prohibiting smoking in ALL enclosed spaces. Better ventilation and/or smokers/non-smokers-rooms should certainly be looked at more closely...

Sitting at my dining table, I have a view of green meadows sloping up to a quaint, old Appenzeller farmhouse.
More often than not, in the summer months, there are cows on the meadow...

Last night at, dinner, a single cow was grazing in my line of vision - its bell ringing to the rhythm of it chewing grass. I got up to get some pepper and when I returned to my seat - really, just a matter of seconds, I found there were two cows - we had a new arrival. The first was still munching away at the grass, apparently unaware that she had company.

Now, I know where cows come from - I’ve seen it on the telly dozens of times. You have this cow either tethered in a barn or lying in a meadow - in either case it makes terrible noises until a guy with a Land Rover turns up to comfort it. The guy then puts his arm into a crevice somewhere around the rear of the cow, disappears into his Land Rover and returns with a rope. One end of the rope disappears into the rear end of the cow and when it is pulled out, there is a calf attached to it!

But that’s not how it happens!
I know because I’ve seen what happens twice in real life.
There is a cow grazing on the meadow, you blink and all of a sudden there is a calf lying next to it, the cow is still munching away at the grass, unaware that she has company - why? Because the calves just drop out of the sky!
The following pictures were taken just a minute after the birth:


As you can see, mum is still unaware of the fact that she has company.


Even when company tries to make itself noticed.


The other cows, having watched the calf fall from the sky, immediately come to investigate...


... which makes mom realise that she has new responsibilities.

While I was taking pictures, my bell rang. My neighbour from downstairs was standing there breathless.
"Did you see what happened?“ she said.
"Yes,“ I said "a calf dropped out of the sky.“
"Do you know who’s cows they are?“
"Well, yes."
"You have to phone him then!" (I would have anyway)

So, I phoned the farmer to inform him of the phenomenon, he arrived ten minutes later to assure himself that all was well and life in Appenzell continued as if nothing much had happened...

On a fairly regular basis, I check to see how many visitors my site is getting. It is always a thrill when I get more than two visitors a day and when it is obvious that those visitors didn't reach my site by mistake...

The last few weeks, however, have seen a rise in visitors that is rather disquieting.
40 to 60 visitors a day is quite an achievement for my lowly blog - especially as I don't update it at regular intervals.
In normal circumstances I would feel proud of myself, but checking online activity shows that a majority of those visitors arrive from 'the other side of the world' and head straight for a post that is exactly twelve months old.

I removed more than half of that post yesterday - it makes me feel safer.
The post was not only attracting too many visitors but also some very obscene comments.
I am sure that those regular readers, who read the original post, will agree with me that it contained nothing racially or religiously discriminating and was in no way derogative.
Nevertheless, depending on what you google, you will find said post at postion number one! In this case, I don't take it to be a tribute to my writing!

My visit to google today produced surprising results.
The swimsuit for Muslim women that I mentioned in said post (I hope you'll forgive me for not mentioning the name of this fashion article, this time round) has been prohibited in some Dutch pools and the Swiss Democrats in Zurich want to have it banned from their swimming baths and from the River Limat which flows through their city!
Both Dutch and Swiss officials allege that the swimsuits are a provocation by a culture refusing to conform with their [chosen] surroundings. At the same time the Swiss state that the swimsuits are unhygienic.

As the swimsuits are made of the same material as conventional/western swimsuits, I can't see that they are less hygienic, so what it boils down to is discrimination.
The Muslims wish to abide by the Quoran and put as little of their bodies on display as possible, which, as far as I am concerned, is their good right. The Europeans don't wish to be forced to look at something they are not used to seeing. After all - we don't eat anything we've never tried before either, do we?!

I always knew that the Swiss are ultra conservative - I wouldn't have thought the same of the Dutch...

Jul, an American living in Munich, recently talked about learning a foreign language and asked 'How do you improve your foreign language skills?'

I immediately started to answer, but half way through, decided my answer was much too long for a comment.
To explain how I practice my language skills, I first have to explain how I learned the language in the first place...

Before I left England for Germany, I very sensibly decided that, if I was going to spend my near future in a foreign country, it might make sense to learn the lingo. I bought a "Teach Yourself Book - A First German" and sat down during my midday breaks and in an evening to study it. I got as far as page 46 before leaving for Germany and learned such interesting and useful sentences as 'Does the dog bite?' and 'The gas-cooker is in the kitchen'.

Of course - having only reached page 46 I never grasped the importance of being able to choose between 'the', 'the' and 'the', before diving headlong into everyday German communication.
In the preface the author of the book states 'One aim of this book is to simplify the learning of endings.' He forgets to explain how important articles are...
How are you supposed to use the accusative, if you know how the article alters to form it, but don't know the correct article in the first place.
Well, well done L.Stringer - you taught me the difference between light and dark, but I never learned if it was 'the' table or 'the' table.

When I arrived in Germany at last, I was able to ask 'what time is it?', but unable to understand the answer. I was able to say 'I'm hungry' but unable to tell anyone what I'd like to eat. And then, all of a sudden, there was a rather disconcerting problem...
... what was I going to do for a living?!

My German girlfriend had told me it wouldn't be a problem to find a job and, hopeless optimist that I am, I'd believed her. Then I suddenly realised that working, more often then not, also entailed writing.
For some reason, no-one wanted to employ an engraver who would engrave the wrong articles into his workpiece, or a graphic Designer who could design a pamphlet without any text...
Luckily I was offered a job as a reproduction-photographer. I grabbed the chance with relief.

The first weeks were spent in a darkroom (and I mean 'dark' - panchromatic film registers all light sources), with someone trying to explain to me what he was doing at any precise moment. It was fun, I can tell you!
You can't imagine how tiring it is to listen to a voice in the dark, knowing just how important the grasp of those foreign words is to your future.

But I had a concrete reason for wanting to learn German - I wanted to be able to communicate with my girlfriend, her family and her friends. They were a great help! All of them - a big thank you in retrospect!

After just a few months I could communicate quite well, so I decided to buy a book - a children's book that I'd already read - "Münchhausens Abenteuer". I was hopelessly overtaxed. Then one day, I was expected to lie around at the open-air swimming pool, a thing I hate. In my boredom, I went to the kiosk and purchased a penny dreadful (a dime novel, for you americans, Groschenroman in German), and WOW!! the style of writing was entirely different - I could understand it.
I read dozens of those novels in the following weeks and my German progressed in leaps and bounds.

Sadly, I never did get my mind around German articles - they clashed with what little French I'd learned at school and never seemed to make sense. I mean - which idiot decided that a roof is neutral while a table is male, unless, of course, you are talking about a spreadsheet, in which case it becomes female...

The result?
I speak fluent German - so much so that the Swiss and many Germans automatically presume that I am German - until they listen closely to how I mumble my way around articles.
My advice to anyone learning German?
Take care to learn the difference between 'the', 'the' and 'the'!!

How did you learn to speak a foreign language?

Switzerland is among the 191 nations that met in Bonn, Germany, last week to discuss what can be done to stem the "unprecedented" loss of the world's biodiversity.

United Nations experts have warned that human activity, including global warming and the shooting of 'problem bears', threatens to cause the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.

Thomas Kolly, head of the Swiss delegation to Bonn, told swissinfo:
"Unfortunately, I have to say that it is quite obvious that we will not meet the goal of lowering flora and fauna loss by 2010".

While he was talking, there were more illegal immigrants on their way from Italy...
... the bears have obviously heard about the bear-proof bins that have been dispersed throughout Grisons (Graubünden) and want to try them for size - we are to expect more arrivals this year.

At least the authorities have stated that they may have to 'rethink' their approach to bears and might even have to redefine what actually constitutes a 'problem bear'.

It is hard to believe that I was first this year!

The houses round here all have flowers hanging below their windows between Spring and Autumn.
I have to admit, it does make them look nice. So, so as not to be different, I participate in this tradition - after all, the window boxes are a fixture and they look strange when they are empty.

Last Wednesday was ‘Kalte Sophie’ the last of the  Eis-Heiligen - the Ice-Saints. These are four days named after the Saints Pankratius, Servatius, Bonifatius and Sophie (the Catholic church has determined a saint for each calendar day) that can begin with a frost. Wednesday evening my flowers were in their window boxes - the first in the whole of the neighbourhood!

Sadly I am unable to take credit for the fact.
I had visitors last week and they took it upon themselves (boredom?) to attend to my empty flower boxes.

Now I have a problem.
Over the years, I have discovered that the whole affair of flowers and plants is rather complicated...
... apparently they need things like water and ¿fertilizer? at regular intervals.

I was never particularly good at maths - especially algebra and equations with unknown denominations - X * Y = ?.
Apparently the important part of this equation is ‘interval’.
Twice every six months, so I have been informed, may be regular, but I seem to have interpreted Y wrongly.
The result: X * Y = †

Somehow, I can’t get rid of the feeling that part of the equation is missing. Didn’t they always give us some sort of a clue at school? Something like X * Y = 6 ?

I shall try very hard, this year, not to disappoint my friends...



There are three of these...
... while downstairs we still have last year's weeds.

Gotcha!

The other day, when I looked out of the window, there were three cats and a fox sitting in a line across the meadow, all staring intently at mouse holes.
Of course, when I opened the window to photograph the scene, the fox got nervous and wandered off.

I managed to take these pics of him (making presumptions again).



Today I spied him at another mouse hole.
I am incapable of opening windows silently, it would seem, so when I opened the window to photograph, he (or she, as the case may be) trotted off a few paces, turned to see what the noise had been, then sat down and watched me for a while before leaving the scene:




Now it is chasing crows!
Rabies?

The Böög predicted a cool and wet summer on Monday!
You've not heard of the Böög?!

Well, at the end of each Winter the people build a large bonfire and burn the effigy of a snowman (who is named the Böög) whose head is filled with explosives.
Depending on how long it takes for the head to explode, the weather for the coming summer can be predicted.
Or so the story goes.

This year it took just over 26 minutes, meaning poor weather this summer. Anything below 12 minutes means good weather.

I know that the Swiss are reputed to be slow, but I wonder if they have ever considered the fact that the speed a bonfire will burn depends on how it is built, what condition the wood is in and - the weather.
On Monday we had rain and snow, so I can imagine the building of the bonfire to have been rather hasty.
The wood was most likely somewhat wet too. As you can see by the picture, there was a great deal of yellow smoke - I seem to remember from my Boy-Scout-days that that means damp.

The Swiss meteorological office reported that the accuracy of the Böög's weather predictions over the last 50 years has been negligable. He did, however, predict the warm Summer of 2003!

The festival is called Sechseläuten - the ringing of the six o'clock bells.
At the end of Winter the church bells would ring at six pm instead of five pm to inform craftsmen that daylight was coming to an end.
The fact that they could work an hour longer was always celebrated with an enormous festival.

Well, if having to work an hour longer each day isn't reason enough for a celebration, I can't imagine what would be...

At first I presumed they were fox tracks.
We have a den of foxes just 500 meters away.
Sometimes, at night, it sounds as if a child is being butchered in my front garden.
I've checked more than once.
You harden with time and now they could butcher a child in my front garden and I wouldn't give it a moments notice.

Just as you hear in tales, the foxes move from hen-coop to hen-coop stealing hens.
You can often watch them, heads held high, carrying off their prizes.
That is why I presumed these to be fox-tracks.



I was mistaken.
We have a lone deer moving backwards and forwards across 'my' valley.
It will stop every now and then at the edge of the woods and scrape the snow off the ground with its hoof, to get at the grass below I presume.



The sound of my shutter, in the silence of the morning, was enough to make him (I'm presuming he's male) dash for the trees...

The snow plough hasn't been through for two days now.
It looks as if we're supposed to be more interested in looking for Easter eggs than in going out.
I've not seen any bunny-tracks, so could you get the snow plough out please!

In something under 100 days the European Cup kicks off with The Czech Republic vs. Switzerland, who is hosting the championships together with Austria.

Talking about a 'Charm-Offensive' Dr. Petra Solba, CEO of Austrian Advertising, stated recently:
'We place a high value on hospitality - the unique mix of service-mindedness and friendliness, spiced with a substantial shot of humor.'
That might just work in Austria, though I have reason to doubt*.

Jürg Schmid, CEO of The Swiss Tourist Board was quoted as saying:
'There are many unexpected sides of Switzerland to discover - for example, the refreshing red and white enthusiasm for their own team. Switzerland wants to surprise!

Oh, they'll surprise, all right, no doubt about that!
Their lack of humour, and the fact that Swiss service enterprises confuse 'hospitality' with 'hostility' is going to cause a lot of surprises.

We are looking at somewhere around 600,000 football tourists and something like 1,000,000 overnight-stays.
For 'tourist' please read 'antogonist', 600,000 people and each of them is going to want something at some point - just imagine the pressure those hotel and restaurant employees are going to be under.

It will start at breakfast with waiters and waitresses being asked the best route to the local stadium.
On too many occasions the answer will be: 'Sorry, this is the hotel restaurant, not an information office!'
It doesn't matter that the guests will not return or that they will most certainly advise friends not to visit, 'they wouldn't have returned anyway - they're only here for the match.'

Just imagine then, that a gentleman from the Swiss Tourist Board has hit on a bizarre new idea. He recently suggested on the radio that the antagonists guests should be treated with respect and answered in a friendly, polite and helpful manner, even though they are not personal friends.
One or two of those service-people may have heard the programme and may even give the idea some consideration.

The rest ...
... I'm not optimistic.

*While skiing in Austria a many years ago I was sitting with friends waiting to order something to eat. The boss served us himself - by the time he got to me, I'd forgotten the name of the desert I'd chosen. Stuttering I asked for 'Salzburger Dingsbums' (Thingamajig)
The boss answered in Austrian German:
'Wannst nit woast wie's hoast, dann brauchst au nit essa'
If you don't know what it's called, you dont need to eat it.

I've not tired Salzburger Nockerl to this day ...

Did I say no sign at all?
I have to take that back.



A watering can and a zink flower pot only made it as far as the middle of the slope down into the valley.
Two watering cans remain lost but are probably just out of sight behind the next dip.



I did manage to get some shopping done, but realise now, why we were warned to stay home.
I had to drag myself along the barn wall to reach my car and was hardly able to grapple the car door open.
Apparently Emma (The hurricane) was blowing at 150 kmh.

There was chaos in St.Gallen when I got there.
They are building a new football stadium/shopping center. The shopping center is due to open next weekend.
It looks as if there might be a delay after all, Emma took part of the roof off and dumped it in the road!
They were working 24/7 to finish on time as it was ...

That bamboo plant is still there. How does one get rid of something like that without attracting attention?

It is difficult to imagine a house shaking for hours on end.
But that is exactly what this one is doing.
Shaking, vibrating and occasionally lurching.
Where the ceiling is still the original wooden-plank-construction the dust of three hundred years is trickling out from between the cracks.

They have warned us not to go outside unless it is absolutely necessary and then definitely not to go where there are trees.
Train services have been discontinued until further notice.
No - we're not in the middle of an earthquake, it is windy!

The picture below is of an electric fence.
Somewhere along its length it came adrift and now it is hanging bizarrely in the wind.
The brown patterns on the grass?
The farmer decided it was going to rain so he emptied the contents of the organic manure tanks from his cow shed.
It hasn't rained yet but thanks to the wind, at least I can't smell it.



My neighbour's metal table has been transported to new surroundings and there is no sign at all of her watering cans.
I just wish the bamboo plant would blow away too ...



... not much chance of that happening, I suppose.

I need to do some shopping, I wonder if I should risk going out ...
... what do they mean when they say 'unless it is absolutely necessary'?

Oh dear, the Bears are loose again!
I mentioned the bears to you, didn't I?
Oh - it was only one bear, wasn't it!
Sorry, I'll have to correct that - we now have two, it would seem.
That probably means that next year there will be more. But only if they stick to the rules!

I mentioned the rules, didn't I?
Yes, I'm sure I did. Bears may be seen, but not heard make a nuisance of themselves.
Ride their tricycles on the right-hand-side of the road and not steal lambs and such!

These bears, or at least one of them would seem to be foreign, or may be lacking, or even both. At least, he didn't seem to understand the rules when they were explained to him. Either that, or he is just contemptuous of Swiss rules.
Although I agree that not all Swiss rules are logical, it is not recomendable to just pass them over.
Sorry, the phones ringing ...

Hello, oh Bruno (the bear is a young male of 98 kg), how nice of you to call.
Look Bruno, we have a problem here - if you get hungry, as you are bound to at some time, please try eating grass or some leaves off the trees.
It might also be acceptable for you to climb up the slopes of the mountain you live on and eat one of the chamois that we are not allowed to shoot - they don't really belong to anyone you see. Like yourself they are just another endangered species.
You are not allowed to wander off downhill and just grab a lamb, when you feel like it.
And keep your paws off those bee-hives!
What was that?
Yes, I know it is easier to catch a lamb than a chamois, but lambs have owners, the chamois don't.

We can't shoot the chamois because they are endangered, we can shoot you if you go round stealing other peoples property.

You have to understand, that when other animals loose their shyness of humans, we call them tame. When young bears like yourself loose their shyness, we get worried and call them troublesome. Well, now we've developed a new "Bear Strategy" .
I'm not sure how sound an idea it is, but we've fitted you out with a bear telephone - strapped around your neck!
We're going to track you via GPS, you see. That way we shall be able to check on you and determine whether or not it really is you stealing our lambs.
If it is, you're in for trouble, I can assure you!

We'll start by letting off fire crackers to frighten the lambs you off. If that doesn't help, we'll pelt you with rubber bullets.
If that doesn't help - beware!

Now about that telephone. You are to phone us at regular intervalls and let us know where you are. There is no point in telling fibs, because when you phone in, we can track you to within 50 cm!
There are further rules, though. Sorry, you can't go up that way - yes, I know you live up there, but that is an area with no reception, you won't be able to phone in, will you. Silly bear!
And stop scratching at that collar - it was expensive! It's not supposed to be comfortable, it is supposed to hold the telephone in place. Now look what you've done - it's all mauled!

Yes Bruno, I know I'm nagging, but it is all to keep you out of harms way.
Yes, I know you are an endangered species, you cant keep harping on that.
To tell you the truth, we thought we'd got rid of the whole lot of you for good, years ago. If you wish to remain here now, you must behave yourself ...

... hello, Bruno? Bruno, I can't hear you. Are you there, Bruno, hellooo?
Damned dead spots!

The last entry to my lowly blog attracted far more attention than I am used to.
Visits to my blog have been tripled all week.
I received a number of mails, my text was quoted on various sites, discussed and often distorted.
A number of people have done their damnedest to prove that they have no humour whatsoever and on more than one occasion, I felt compelled to try and explain what I was trying to say.

Here is an explanation that I wrote yesterday ...

Hi Graham

Thanks very much for your views on my blog.
My last entry drew a number of comments.
As you perhaps saw, one guy suggested I might be a functional analphebet. (He meant illiterate, of course, but otherwise his english is pretty good.)
I was being ironic about the fact that pamphlets urging people to protest against foreigners are posted through the letterboxes of said foreigners.
I did not expect to be quoted on so many sites.

The figures I used are the figures quoted in the SVP-pamphlet. They were provided by the Swiss federal police and are presumably accurate, I read the same figures in a number of newspapers. Admittedly, I deliberately exaggerated the facts to present what a foreigner or a Blick/Bild/Sun-reader may have understood. The way that some Brits and Americans I've spoken to did understand them.

It is a sorry fact that the English speaking nations find German a difficult language to master, as do Turks, Yugoslavians or Thai. Most Brits, however, do try to understand the newspapers and the rubbish that lands in the letter box, some literature gets misinterpreted though. I know a number of expats who found the pamphlet displeasing. Two even returned it to she SVP with a letter of protest.

As for Brits abroad, if you had travelled to Mallorca a few years ago, it would have been the Germans who left the bad impression while during the same period the Brits were rendering the Canary Isles unsafe and the Dutch some Greek Islands.
I think large numbers of young tourists of any nation promote the mutual feeling, that rompish spirits may be presented without retribution. I am speaking from limited (but unpleasant) experience, as I only rarely visit mass-tourist-resorts.

The fact that a Welsh flag flies outside 'my' house is also meant ironically.
Every second house up here on 'my' hill has a Swiss or Appenzeller flag flying. I find it amusing to present a different coat of arms.
My neighbours, of course, haven't caught on to the humor - they put it down to national pride and possibly think I'm not quite doing my best to 'fit in'.
The flag wasn't presented in Wales, because it would be just as witless as flying a Swiss flag here.*

I have lived on the continent for long enough to know what any European means, when he says "not that kind of foreigner". Still, people stand at pub bars and rant about foreigners without taking into account the fact, that they are standing next to one. I am permanently aware of the fact that I am - almost everywhere - a foreigner. Sitting or standing next to one of those ranters does not make for a comfortable evening. It can make an interesting afternoon in a sunny beer garden. I do, however, often feel an urge to protest.

I understand the sentiments that lead a 'neutral' country to play bank to Mr. Hitler. They have been condemned all too often in various publications. 
I'm glad to say WWII was long before my time and I don't see any purpose in prolonged pointing of fingers towards Switzerland, or even Germany for that matter.
I did mention the SVP being 'not-quite-national-socialist' in connection to Hitler when, on reflection, I should have stayed with the fact that five of the last seven titel-pages of their monthly magazine have carried anti-foreigner slogans.
No wonder the right-wing-radicals want to take over the Rütliwiese!**

Exaggeration of facts is part and parcel of irony.
You will find similar exaggeration in many of my other articles.
I'll do my best to present something just a little more pleasing the next time I sit down to write ...

*Witless: Without humour
**The Rütliwiese is the meadow (not a mountain as stated in an earlier post) where the official celebrations are held on the Swiss national holiday. It is supposedly the place where three Swiss gentlemen swore:
"We will be a single nation of brothers". The Swiss national myth.

I read a report today, about the impact of the mobile phone on Australian life.

Two quotes from the reports summary are interesting:

The mobile phone is an indispensable part of the everyday life. More than 90% of people asked, report that their lives could not ‘proceed as normal’ if they were suddenly without their mobile phone.

The mobile phone is an important medium for maintaining kinship ties, especially for women. The mobile is a device well suited to maintaining intimate relationships at a geographical distance.

Rubbish! I can't see how a mobile phone could possibly be indispensable or help maintain an intimate relationship!
O.k. I have carried a mobile phone around with me now for over sixteen years - the first weighed in at twelve Kilos. I have to admit that, for some years now, I no longer need a woman at my side to constantly remind me of appointments, of birthdays, aniversaries and other important dates. My mobile has certainly made me more independent.

My mobile wakes me every morning on weekdays, ensuring that I get to work on time.
Clicking a few buttons will impart almost any telephone number in the world and I have used it to book and to pay for flights, car rentals and train rides.
It gives me a weather forecast twice a day, keeps track of all my addresses and I use it to take all kinds of notes - it allows me to do my job more efficiently (another point made in the report).

It can even make telephone calls.

Oh! That makes it sound pretty much indispensable, doesn't it?
Well then, what about relationships?

I can openly admit that my mobile phone is of no help, whatsoever, at maintaining relationships - near or far!
After checking the software that came with the phone, I can't find a single application that is even remotely suited to maintaining a relationship of any sort.

To be quite honest with you, I think human elements are required for that sort of thing.

I read a number of different blogs regularly and something that crops up on a regular basis on expatriate blogs is "Things I miss ..."

Americans expatriates, for instance, miss Book Shops, Mexican Restaurants, Road Trips, SF-Bay-Weather, Californian Weather, Peanut Butter, Jell-O, Dr. Peppers, Peaberry Coffee Shops ...

While I can understand some of the above, there are things beyond my comprehension:
What is Jell-O; what's wrong with European Peanut Butter; there is a Starbucks round the corner - why isn't that an alternative for Peaberries; Road Trip?

I only went to one Mexican Restaurant in the States: I hated it. I rather like those here in St.Gallen - that probably makes me a philistine!

On the other hand - there are book stores, even large book stores here in Switzerland. They even have reading tables. But they come nowhere close to a Book Store in the U.S. - No sofas, no armchairs to sit in, no free coffee ...
... just not cosy!

Anyway, after reading another of those blogs today, I started wondering what I missed about England. My conclusion:
I don't!

I know I used to - I missed Marmite, Custard, Xmas Pudding, Malt Vinegar, Fish and Chips, Trifle and Tea.
For some reason, I've grown so used to living in Europe that I don't miss those things any more.

I do buy tea whenever I'm in England and wouldn't ever drink any of the concoctions they call 'Tea' here. If I don't have any tea left, I don't miss it, I just drink coffee!
Same goes for vinegar - When I run out, I use italian vinegar.

I enjoy Custard, Fish and Chips and Xmas Pudding - when I'm on the Isle - but I don't miss having them here.

Things have altered over the years. The thing I miss now is German Bread.
The Swiss have more different varieties of bread than any other country in the world, I read recently.
They even have something called wholemeal bread. You have to be very, very lucky though, if it comes even close to German wholemeal ...
... it is more often a very dry affair that conforms to the laws defining wholemeal.

(The ash-value is important - after burning flour, the ash is weighed. It has to reach a specific weight to be defined as wholemeal.
The Germans reach the ash-value by using whole ground wheat, rye or whatever.
The Swiss do what the Germans used to do thirty years ago - they add bran to filtered and degerminated flour.)

Other than missing bread, I find it annoying that France is a three-hour-drive, so purchasing pickled gherkins is slightly inconvenient, Spain is even further, so I seldom get Spanish coffee-beans and I have to travel to Germany or Italy to purchase decent Italian wines ...
... I'm definitely European - even if I retain my British eccentricity!

What do you miss as an expat?

A bear 'strolled' across the border from northern Italy this week and into Switzerland.

The Swiss authorities, efficient as ever, decided that - seeing as how they had neglected to check the bears papers at the border - they would issue guidelines for the conduct of bears!

The problem is, you see, just recently a bear wandered into the Bavarian Alps and just happened to pass in front of someone's rifle. Of course, the rifle went off and the bear never got a chance to read the rules of conduct for German bears.
The Swiss would like to prevent the same fate befalling 'our' bear.
First, bears have been classified in three categories:
unobtrusive; problematic and high-risk.
I'm not sure you'll find these categories in any zoological encyclopedia, that is just how Swiss minds work.
High-risk-bears may be shot - no questions asked.

Our bear was sighted carrying a white flag, so he's been classified as unobtrusive.

Dear Mr/Mrs Bear,
If you are reading this, please take a look at the guidelines for the conduct of bears in Switzerland. Don't wave at the photographers as this may be misinterpreted as a threatening gesture. And when you climb on your unicycle, please remember that we drive on the right here in Switzerland - we wouldn't want you to have an accident!

Take care.

Don't mention the skiing.
That is what Heather's blog is called.

I discovered it some time ago, but wasn't into blogging then - neither reading nor writing.
Then I read something about a British expatriate winning the Swiss blog-award.
That was how I discovered the magic behind Heather's writing.
Heidi would have been proud of her.

We never met personally. We exchanged a few comments now and then.
I would find something in her blog that I commented on and vice versa.

Her last entry was on 20th February 2007. On the 21st she moved from somewhere in Canton Zürich in Switzerland to somewhere in Germany.
Sadly she hasn't been heard of since.
Perhaps she really does have a new blog entitled 'Don't mention the Leberwurst' or 'Hans would have been disgusted' or something similar.
If she does, I don't know of it yet.

Heather hasn't visited my blog since February and I can't see any of her comments on other blogs she used to frequent.
I do hope that nothing happened on the way to Germany ...

Heather,
if you still have an internet connection, put up a few words to let us know how you are and how Germany greeted you.
You have a faithful audience out there and I know that many of us are waiting to read about your adventures in Germany.

Go on - nudge, nudge ...

Cherry blossom in the fountain.



The thing I like here, is that the meadows haven't, as yet, been totally over-dunged so in spring we go through a mass of different colours instead of the typical yellow of suffocated grazing land ...

Party Girl Paris Hilton was in Basel yesterday, where she arrived 50 minutes late to present her collection of watches at the Baselworld Jewellery Exhibition.
She prefers Rolex herself ...



Apparently she has problems with her geography.
During a televised interview she said:
"This is my first visit to Zurich"

Perhaps she does too much partying?

Just a few weeks ago heavy snow falls caused chaos for British commuters.
It was a Thursday and five centimetres of snow fell.
British workers in their hundreds failed to turn up for work on both Thursday and Friday, even though the roads and rails had been cleared.

Bearing this in mind, I decided, yesterday, not to go to work.
After listening to the weather forecast, however, I changed my mind and decided postpone my absence until next week!
After all - we only have 60 cm of snow and down in the valley (St. Gallen) it is even less!

I don’t read the Guardian (chance would be a fine thing), don’t have BBC4 and (therefore) have never heard of Charlie Brooker. Who is he anyway?

And who are Webb and Mitchell?
And what is the television series ‘Peep Show’ about?

The answers to all these questions might allow me to understand why this Charlie, whoever he is, recently described me as being a smug, preening, tosser.
(I presume that last word is something derogative?)

This Charlie, apparently, hates all Mac users and even hates people who wished they could use a Mac.
How stupid is that?
If all Mac users hated all PC users and vice versa, there would be bombs lying under our desks in a morning; you would be scared to turn on your computer in case it had been rigged to explode; you couldn’t touch your mouse, for fear of loosing fingers!

The situation would be worse than anything the IRA ever concocted!

My first encounters with computers were in 1980 - I already wrote about that.
I’ve tried them all and I have both Macs and PCs at home. I have to, the costs of developing specialised applications for both platforms are just too high for some developers, so I use this software here, that software there.

I don’t like PCs but I have to use them. I would imagine that's how most users feel ...
I like Macs and I have to use them too. My colleagues feel the same way.

What is the difference? I mean, they both run MS Office, MS Internet Explorer, Outlook, Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, QuarkXPress etc. so what is the difference?

An example: I just switched on my Mac (I don’t usually switch it off, but I did some tidying up last night). It booted and I got on with some work.
At almost the same time I switched on my PC (I usually switch it off - regular use is frustrating).

When it had booted, a little message popped up to tell me it was connected to a network. Well, of course you are, silly, you always have been - how else would I swap files with other machines or get on the internet?

Then a message appeared to tell me that my virus definitions are older than twelve hours and I am at risk of being infected.

Another message informed me, that my firewall is inactive and I am at risk of being hacked (silly - there’s an external, dedicated firewall right behind you!)

Yet another window popped up to tell me, that a newer version of Windows is awaiting me and if I wish to be sure that my machine is secure, I should take advantage of it.

I activate my Outlook.
Now the one I like best of all pops up:
'An element requires your attention - no action is necessary, would you like to take this action?'
Come again?!
I’ve tried switching this one off (it costs me $125 a year to maintain) but then a big orange window appears to tell me ‘You are deactivating Internet Security, which will make you prone to all sorts of nasty things. Do you really want to do this?’
So - every five minutes, I click to confirm that I do not wish to take any action.

And so it continues. Ten minutes and I haven’t done anything productive yet at all ...
... are there really people out there, that get paid for clicking away at these silly little boxes all day long?
I get paid for producing magazines and letterheads, brochures and things like that ...

So now this Charlie person, comes along and tells me he hates me!
Because I’m more productive than he is, or what?

The plane lands at 06:00, my lady-friend told me.
I got to the arrivals hall at Zurich airport at 05:45
I’m an optimist, some flights actually arrive ahead of schedule.

A glance at the flight board:
Planned arrival 06:40 - expected arrival 07:40!
I double check the flight number - correct!

I look at the note that has been tucked into my pocket - 06:00!
Oh no!!
And the time of arrival has shifted again - another ten minutes!
So what does one do at Zurich airport for two hours or more?

While drinking coffee, I reflected on something I’d read on Charlotte’s Web.
I lived in England for the first 21 years of my life and have lived in Germany and Switzerland since ...
I am still a British national, but am I really British?
What am I, if not British?
German? Certainly not! Swiss? No Way! European perhaps?
Whatever - I do have a lot in common with Charlotte!

Things that help me fit in:

• I am not as conservative as British people I know. But I used to be.
• I enjoy dark Weizenbier (as often as possible).
• I always have a crate or two of beer in my Cellar.
• I often visit, or have visitors for coffee and cake on a Sunday afternoon
and go for a walk afterwards.
• I have difficulty changing gears with my left hand
(And whenever I want to use the hand brake it has disappeared).
• I automatically say ‘Sie’ (Thou) to strangers.
• I prefer ground coffee beans to Nescafé.
• I complain about the size and shape of Bretzels in Switzerland
(which would make me German).
(I complain about life in general in Switzerland, which again places me in Germany)
• If someone drops litter in the street, I will reprimand them.
• I get up earlier in Winter to clear snow from the drive.


Things that make me British:

• I never learned to use my elbows in a ‘Queue’.
• I can’t understand, that Europeans can’t see the logic behind said queues.
• I can’t get into the habit of removing my shoes in my own home, but will in other people’s homes.
• I can’t see anything good about a Metzgete.
• I import tea and Daddies Brown Sauce from England.
• I prefer custard to vanilla sauce.
• I still can’t see logic behind ‘the, the and the’ (der, die, das, le, la and les especially as they often conflict in German and French).
• I can’t resist Liquorice Allsorts, Salt and Vineagar Crisps or Ginger biscuits.
(Why on earth does my spell checker want to remove the ‘e’ from vineagar)
• I prefer vineagar on my chips and don’t even want to try to imagine what they would taste like with mayonnaise!
• I didn’t realise you could put the hood up on a Cabriolet!

I shall never be a real German or real Swiss. For one thing I can’t see why I should pay a fee for not having served in the Army, just to obtain a new nationality.

Where do you fit in with the country you live in and what makes you typically different?
If you feel like playing, consider yourself tagged!

If you are allergic to Nuts, then you had better take the Easter eggs you just bought, back to the shops!

Talk about 'Post Early For Christmas' - Christmas is just over and already Cadbury is recalling Easter Eggs because they do not carry the correct nut allergy labelling!

If you are not allergic to nuts, by the way, the eggs are entirely safe - just continue as if I hadn't said anything ...

There are a number of blogs that I read when I have the time.

These last few weeks I have, on a number of occasions, read:
"On my other blog, I have written about ..."
These are people who purportedly have a profession to practice or studies to follow!

I often lack the time to maintain a single blog or I feel there is nothing profane enough to put down in writing.

How do they do it?

Bah! Humbug! Father Christmas doesn't exist - or does he?

When i was a child, we used to hang a pillow case at the foot of the bed for Father Christmas to fill in the night from 24th to the 25th of December.
Santa would fill it with all sorts of goodies and I was invariably awake at around five'o'clock, wanting to show my parents the goodies. And I can ensure you, that the mandarins and chocolates weren't half as interesting as that train set, that I had set up in my bedroom by five thirty!
Two things altered my perception of Santa. Firstly: he supposedly visited all good children during that night - the whole world over.
At some point, I worked out, that he would have his work cut out, just sliding down all the chimneys in Birmingham, let alone the whole world.
Secondly: I swear I saw my Dad putting the goodies into the pillow case one night!

Over the years I have always wondered and now my perspective has altered.
It first started, when I moved to Germany.
That was when I discovered that Santa visits the German-speaking-nations on the sixth of December. (Saint Nicholas died on this date - I know, because I remember reading it on his grave in Myra, Turkey!)
At first I thought this was because the Germans are impatient and unable to wait for the 25th. Yesterday, however, Santa was sighted in Toronto, where his sleigh broke down this year.
Perhaps I should reconsider. Perhaps he spreads his workload over the whole of December and does, somehow, manage to visit all of those children after all!
What a nice thought.

The Boss recently introduced me to one of our sales people as
"...and this is our computer expert."
My job title is actually something entirely different, as some of you might actually have read elsewhere.
I am not a computer expert - far from it. A computer is the tool I use to accomplish the work I do, the way a carpenter most likely uses a saw every day.

The sales person stood and watched me working in Photoshop for a few minutes and then commented
"Wow, I wish I could use a computer like that! How long have you been working with computers?"

This made me stop and think ...

I acquired my first computer in 1980. It was from Texas Instruments and used Basic.
I fiddled around with it for a few weeks without being able to reconcile myself to the fact that, not only did you have to tell it what to do, you also had to explain how to do it. It couldn't do anything I couldn't imagine for myself.
This is not what they had told me, that computers would be able to do.
I gave it away to someone that - hopefully - could put it to more use than I could.

It must have been around 1983, that I first bought a computer that ran DOS. Green text on a black screen - yuck!
It could do things without me needing to explain what I wanted it to do, but I had to write out commands to get it to do so. The commands got more and more intricate, the more complicated the things you wanted it to do.
But, at least it could do things that I couldn't imagine and I could write letters on it. There was also a software loaded, called MS MultiPlan that allowed me to create rudimentary spreadsheets. A slide-rule is faster.

My boss at work bought a Mac in 1985 and I envied him for its GUI (Grafical User Interface).
It was also in 1985, that A guy at the Motorpresse in Stuttgart greeted me excitedly, waving a piece of paper. The paper had some text printed on it in Black and white. It had been produced with PageMaker on a Mac.
"This is the future of the reproduction industry" he informed me.
Although I didn't believe him for another two years, he was right!
(A few years later I was lucky enough to help produce the first digitally published magazine in Germany.)

I couldn't afford a Mac of my own so I was rather pleased, when Microsoft copied the GUI and introduced Windows in 1986. It wasn't quite the same as using a Mac, but it was similar. The thing I hated was how often it crashed!
Windows was always just that little more complicated than a Mac. It has always been a lot less productive.
I spend the first ten minutes, after booting my Windows laptop clicking away at irritating messages - most of them warning me about something to do with the internet and viruses.

I always preferred to work with a Mac and I have been teaching people how to use them since 1987.
My first very own Mac was purchased in 1991.
There are still six of my old Macs on various shelves in my office and I have three in everyday operation.
Computers have always interested me as a means to accomplish things in the publishing industry. In the meantime, they interest me from a general media point of view. I only ever dug down as far down into their workings as I have needed.

My knowledge of publishing and design applications has been accumulated over a period of 20 years. Some of it has been hard work - most especially, understanding the theory behind the practice.

I'm not sure the sales person was really that interested in my computer past, so I just said
"Since about 1987"
"Well, in that case, it's no wonder!" he said.

I suppose, that if I were unable to use the tools of my trade after 20 years, I should, or hopefully would, have chosen some other trade.

I read, the other day, that the British 'still' throw too much into their dustbins that might be used to steal their identities.
I couldn't fathom out, what sort of 'stuff' that might be, until I went to renew my contract for my mobile phone (and procure a new phone into the bargain).

Salesperson: Do you have an ID with you, as proof of identity?
Me: No, the war ended nearly 60 years ago and where I come from, they haven't been deemed necessary since.
SP: well, do you have a passport with you?
Me: Yes, I have it in the car.
SP: Could you fetch it, I can't extend your contract, without proof of identity?

I fetched my passport, proved that I am who I am and walked off happily with my new phone.

Then it occurred to me, what it might be, the British are dropping into their bins!

I mentioned, that during my holiday in Wales, the magnetic strip on my credit card got zapped!
Suddenly I was unable to withdraw funds from a cash machine.
There was a bill for B&B waiting for me, so I phoned Visa who confirmed that indeed, it was the magnetic strip and no, the card had not been suspended, I would be able to withdraw up to £x,000 at any banks cash-desk but preferably Barclays.

I trotted off to Barclays in Barmouth, where there was a nice lady behind the glass.
NL: "No, Sir I can't give you cash on a credit card, you'll have to use the hole in the wall"
I explained my situation but she informed me, that she was unable to help.
Me: "Well, who can help?"
She didn't really know.
I explained, that I was 800 Miles from home, had a hotel bill for £200 and was in need of petrol, to continue my journey.
NL: "Well how much did you wish to withdraw then?"
Me: "£300 would have me on my way"
NL: Gasp !!! She held on to the counter for support.
NL "I'm sorry sir, there is no way, that I can let you have, gasp, that amount of money. Impossible!"
Me: "Well, how much could you let me have then?"
NL: "£50 utmost"
Me: Well that will get me back to the hotel, at least."
NL: "Do you have any form of identification?"
Me: "Well, yes, I have my British Passport and my International Driving License.
NL: "I'm sorry sir, I'm afraid that won't suffice. Do you have a gas bill or an electricity bill, addressed to your home address?"
Me "Hiccup?" ( I have always been in a habit of carrying wads of old bills around with me)
Me" What on earth for??!!"
NL " As proof of identity."
Me "And how am I going to prove, that I really live there?"

We finally agreed, that she might give me £10 against my valid passport.
I stood and banged my head against the wall, as she dragged my dud magnetic strip through the slit in her keyboard for the tenth time ...

The ten pounds got me to a Nat West in Caernarfon, where the next nice lady asked if I could be so kind and 'just sign on the dotted line', before she handed over £300.

I have no idea what else might suffice as proof of identity in Britain. It might be worth checking a couple of dustbins.

Gone phishing ...

I now know why Homo Sapiens have larger brains than Felines.

I just went out for a short stroll and my two kittens decided to tag along.
Most of the meadows are fenced off with electric fences - these I have found to be efficient in keeping you on the right path in the dark!
Anyway - just out of sight of the house, there is a meadow without a fence so we walked through the grass around its perimeter and along the edge of the woods.
We didn't venture far into the meadow, because it looks as if the farmers will be able to mow just once more this year and they hate it when those city-people have walked right across the grass!
As we reached the third side of the meadow the house came back into view. I continued to walk along the edge/electric fence, but the kittens decided it would be shorter to run straight through the middle of the cows ...
(Why is it, that cats are wary of dogs at a distance of 500 meters but ignore the much larger cows even at 2 meters?)
Now cows have a tendency to leave those large brown puddles everywhere.
One of those puddles now has two perfect sets of cat-prints in it and I have two kittens with very smelly feet!

The female, that shared my life for the longest period of time, that put up most patiently with all of my foibles and, without fail, was there waiting for me, when I came home from a long day at work or a long night on the binge, died just over two months ago. We had been together for eighteen years.

When we first met, she was accompanied by her brother. He lived with us for a few years, but died after being hit by a car.
At eighteen, she was getting old - on cold days, you could really hear her joints complain when she moved. She was unable to move very quickly as she got older, but she always acted with great dignity and only rarely did she complain.

I missed her, when she went - eighteen years is a long time and a good age for a cat.

Neighbours were quick to ask, if I wanted to replace her ...
... last Tuesday I took delivery of this pair.



They are a pair of nuisances! They can't remember what I have told them for longer than fifteen seconds and are always getting into trouble!
I had forgotten, what it is like to have young kittens around.
I've named them Becca and Benson, but if they persist in presenting me with pictures like this, I might rename them Ying and Yang ...

How do you boil an egg?
Although I really enjoy cooking, I couldn't boil a soft boiled egg for you, even if my life depended on it.
The problem is, you can ask whoever you like, how to boil an egg and you will get a different answer every time.
I know because I recently asked and almost rekindled the civil war which originally separated the two halves of Appenzell.

Now, at last, help is at hand. As of autumn this year you will be able to go to the supermarket and purchase soft boiled eggs, or hard boiled - as you prefer.

Our very own Lion Quality Eggs are to be printed with an invisible, heat sensitive ink. You will be able to drop your eggs into hot water, boiling water or cold water - which ever your preferred method is - and when your egg is just right for you to dip your toasted soldiers into, the ink will appear to inform you of the fact!

And no, it is not April the first!


An egg shell displaying a new thermochromic logo, which becomes
visible when the egg is cooked (PA - The Times)

At long last it rained.
The skies turned black, wind came up and, for all of ten minutes it poured down with rain.

Cows, it seems, rather like humans, are never quite happy with the weather.
This morning they were huddled under the trees utilising what shadow there was.
For the last ten minutes they have been huddled under the trees sheltering from the rain!